India's first Omicron death in Rajasthan, confirms Union Health Ministry

New Delhi, Jan 5: India has officially reported the first death due to the Omicron variant of Covid-19, Union Health Ministry confirmed on Wednesday. A 73-year-old man, who died last week in Rajasthan, was infected by the new variant.

"Technically it is Omicron related death (on the Rajasthan case). He was an elderly person. The person is reported to have comorbidities, like diabetes among others," Luv Aggarwal, Joint Secretary, Union Health Ministry, said during a media interaction.

The 73-year-old man, who was found infected with Omicron in genome sequencing and who had tested negative for the infection twice, died in a Udaipur hospital on December 31, sources close to PTI said.
He died due to post-Covid pneumonia coupled with comorbidities -- diabetes mellitus, hypertension and hypothyroidism -- Udaipur Chief Medical Health Officer (CMHO) Dr Dinesh Kharadi had said.

The man was found Covid positive on December 15 and had symptoms like fever, cough and rhinitis and therefore, was admitted to the hospital.

A sample was sent for genome sequencing and the results were received on December 25, in which he was found infected with the Omicron variant of the virus. The man had tested negative for Covid-19 twice on December 21 and 25.

Meanwhile, India reported 58,097 fresh Covid-19 cases and 2,135 Omicron cases on Tuesday.